Title: Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates
Publisher: HQN Books
Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: C+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
The Ashwood women don’t have much in common…except their ability to keep secrets.
When Lark Ashwood’s beloved grandmother dies, she and her sisters discover an unfinished quilt. Finishing it could be the reason Lark’s been looking for to stop running from the past, but is she ever going to be brave enough to share her biggest secret with the people she ought to be closest to?
Hannah can’t believe she’s back in Bear Creek, the tiny town she sacrificed everything to escape from. The plan? Help her sisters renovate her grandmother’s house and leave as fast as humanly possible. Until she comes face-to-face with a man from her past. But getting close to him again might mean confessing what really drove her away…
Stay-at-home mom Avery has built a perfect life, but at a cost. She’ll need all her family around her, and all her strength, to decide if the price of perfection is one she can afford to keep paying.
This summer, the Ashwood women must lean on each other like never before, if they are to stitch their family back together, one truth at a time…
Review:
Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates is a family-centric novel that deals with some heavy subject matter.
Lark Ashwood moved from her hometown after graduating from high school. After college, she takes a job as an illustrator for children’s books. She also works on her own projects and she enjoys traveling and exploring new places. But after her beloved grandmother dies, Lark decides it is time to move back home and begin a new stage in her life. But the reasons why she left all those years ago are still unresolved. And Lark soon discovers her feelings for an old friend still remain. Will she finally make peace with the issues that have continued to haunt her?
Lark’s middle sister Hannah has a successful career as a violinist with the Boston Symphony. With the summer off from the symphony, she plans to renovate her grandmother’s family home and turn it into an Airbnb rental property. Lark is not at all thrilled to be thrust in close proximity with her high school boyfriend. And when they begin spending time together, old memories begin to rise to the surface. Will finally coming to terms with what happened to her allow her to make changes in her life?
Oldest sister Avery returned home after college and she is married to a surgeon with a demanding career. She takes care of their two children and she is very involved with other school moms. From the outside, Avery has the perfect life but is she hiding secrets from her sisters and parents?
While all three girls love their mother, Mary, none of them are close to her. The grandmother they were so close to abandoned her family when Mary was three years old. She was raised by her dad who did not like to deal with messy emotions. Mary’s pragmatic approach to life makes it difficult for her to relate to her three daughters. Now they are back in town, Mary is hoping to repair her strained relationships with her daughters.
Confessions from the Quilting Circle is a character-driven novel of recovering from old and new pain. The characters are well-developed with genuine strengths and weaknesses. The storyline is interesting but the overall pacing is somewhat slow to since the women are prone to a lot of introspection. Maisey Yates brings this engaging story to a satisfying conclusion.
